When did you come to Linux?

[BG405]

If you want to forage into Arch and have a more pleasant experience, Manjaro is the way to go. It is the best Arch-based distro out there, they are semi-rolling (they don't push anything out until they are sure it works...) and installation is a heck of a lot easier. You can use AUR and the Arch repositories, if you are a glutton for punishment.

Agreed! I'm using it for this reply.

Then what would be the point? For an operating system that just works, I already have Linux Mint.

It will make it easy to familiarize yourself with Pacman & other aspects of Arch-based systems, like the differences in the filesystem directory structure (there are a few), before jumping in at the deep end .. unless the latter is really what you want to do, as I did .. I installed Arch in VirtualBox before adopting Manjaro KDE as my second "main" OS.

[Portreve]

Many years ago, I attempted to install Gentoo on an iMac G4. This was at a friend's suggestion

He is an experienced programmer, SysAdmin and NetAdmin, and even here could not figure out how to get it to fully compile and send itself up, even though he's done it on standard x86 and x86-64 hardware.

It was sort of fun and mostly frustrating and I was in no way qualified to attempt installing it on my own.

[Arch_Enemy]

I am contemplating an Arch partition in future. I would probably never switch over to something like that full time - it would more be just a project to learn from.

The awesomeness of Linux as a desktop operating system is a hugely well kept secret

If you want to forage into Arch and have a more pleasant experience, Manjaro is the way to go.

Then what would be the point? For an operating system that just works, I already have Linux Mint.

"Arch" and "system that already works" are mutually exclusive. Have a look at the "Arch Way" for installing Arch, and then mosey over to Manjaro and see why. There's no graphical based system to install Arch, and you really need to know your potatoes (eth0 address, etc) to load Arch. Like most things associated with Arch, it can be an exquisite pain. Manjaro comes with a nifty GUI install utility, and If you want bleeding-edge when you're done, you can change your repos to Arch's rolling repos.

At least you have intestinal fortitude and gumption, I must say!

[Arch_Enemy]

What I meant to say was, it'a a Pain in the Arch...

[lsemmens]

Chaos Manner was always my first port of call whenever the new Byte arrived. Jerry certainly had some interesting stories. Haven't had Byte magazine for years, does it still exist?

[RIH]

Haven't had Byte magazine for years, does it still exist?

According to Wiki..

Print publication ceased in 1998 and online publication in 2013.

[lsemmens]

Thanks

[MurphCID]

Chaos Manner was always my first port of call whenever the new Byte arrived. Jerry certainly had some interesting stories. Haven't had Byte magazine for years, does it still exist?

Sadly, no. But I, too always wanted to see what Jerry was using, great hardware far, far more expensive than anything I could ever afford.

[MurphCID]

This guy installed the first Linux I ever played with in this video. Wow, I am taken back down memory lane. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvFelGwZBcc

[SolidState]

I began with Slackware. Downloaded from Compuserve of all places at 2400baud. Took a while. -- 30 some odd number of 3.5" diskettes. Had to use some image writer to get the boot/root installer pair set up. The install also took a while....This was back in 1993 or early 94. Kept a windows install on a second drive of a 386/40mhz with 4meg of ram -- struggled along happily learning how to set up a printer, sound -- had a Gravis Card, some full-length and height 16 bit job. Delivered pretty amazing sound for its day..... FVWM was my wndow manager of choice before gnome surfaced. Stayed with Slackware Through to the Dropline Gnome years, until that became unusable -- then went to UbuntuStudio around 2007, and discovered the wow factor using compiz. I actually find compiz useful for moving around the desktop, especially when I have a lot of different document types open. Browser and mailer on one viewport....word processor on another....text editor elsewhere, all nicely accessible through the marvels of compiz and its keyboard short cuts..

Odd as it sounds I still miss Slackware, Although building gnome software packages could be a configuration nightmare in dependency hell. I recently saw there is some support for installing mate desktop. I ought to give it a try.

Cheers

[fritz8666]

Since 2007 I use only Linux, first open Suse, about Centos, came I to Ubuntu with Ubuntu 8.04.01.

So all the follow year's I had use Ubuntu/Xubuntu.

Now I use Linux Mint 19.

fritz8666

[MurphCID]

I began with Slackware. Downloaded from Compuserve of all places at 2400baud. Took a while. -- 30 some odd number of 3.5" diskettes. Had to use some image writer to get the boot/root installer pair set up. The install also took a while....This was back in 1993 or early 94. Kept a windows install on a second drive of a 386/40mhz with 4meg of ram -- struggled along happily learning how to set up a printer, sound -- had a Gravis Card, some full-length and height 16 bit job. Delivered pretty amazing sound for its day..... FVWM was my wndow manager of choice before gnome surfaced. Stayed with Slackware Through to the Dropline Gnome years, until that became unusable -- then went to UbuntuStudio around 2007, and discovered the wow factor using compiz. I actually find compiz useful for moving around the desktop, especially when I have a lot of different document types open. Browser and mailer on one viewport....word processor on another....text editor elsewhere, all nicely accessible through the marvels of compiz and its keyboard short cuts..

Odd as it sounds I still miss Slackware, Although building gnome software packages could be a configuration nightmare in dependency hell. I recently saw there is some support for installing mate desktop. I ought to give it a try.

Cheers

You have my utter respect sir! Slackware users are worthy of all respect (as are Arch users).

[Crippled]

I first tried Linux back in 2000, sound wouldn't work and the Dial Up Networking didn't work either on Corell, Mandrake, and Redhat. There was no support what so ever and lack of drivers, but an over abundance of lame excuses. I didn't look at Linux until September 2015 after reading the Microsoft E.U.L.A. for Windows 10. Then I seen a video of openSUSE being installed and worked. I gave openSUSE a try and it worked. After a month I removed Windows 8.1 since I wasn't using it anymore and have been using Linux 100% of the time ever since.

[MurphCID]

I first tried Linux back in 2000, sound wouldn't work and the Dial Up Networking didn't work either on Corell, Mandrake, and Redhat. There was no support what so ever and lack of drivers, but an over abundance of lame excuses. I didn't look at Linux until September 2015 after reading the Microsoft E.U.L.A. for Windows 10. Then I seen a video of openSUSE being installed and worked. I gave openSUSE a try and it worked. After a month I removed Windows 8.1 since I wasn't using it anymore and have been using Linux 100% of the time ever since.

I started playing with Mandrake using Version 7/7.1 back in the day and had much the same experience with the early distros.

[MissileCop]

I started taking Linux for a test drive back in 2008, starting with PCLinuxOS, and Mepis. I came across Linux Mint Daryna, and I've been stuck here ever since. Moved to LMDE when it came out in 2010, and it's continued to be my primary desktop since then.

Who knew Linux would end up costing me so much money? LOL What started out as a single OS/single drive/single monitor system has now blown up into a multiple Linux Mint OS/Virtualbox-multiple OS/6 hard drive/3 monitor system. Then a completely separate machine with 5 drives for OS and backups, and a Mediasonic 4 bay enclosure for external backup drives.

[Danny Vermin]"I lost my data once......ONCE" [/Danny Vermin] Older folks will recognize the character from the Johnny Dangerously movie. I just used his line to fit my view about data and backups.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad9mlvyA84E

[JoeFootball]

For the archives...

I used Unix in college in the late 1980s, as well as VMS (remember that beast?), but was pretty much on DOS otherwise at school, work, and home.

In the early 1990s, I read about a "free Unix for PCs" named Linux on various BBS posts. Interesting, but I didn't pursue it, because I didn't think it was going to go anywhere, as I wasn't finding much in the industry magazines. Of course, that would soon change.

Summer 1999, my first Linux install was Debian 2.1, which I have just now realized was about this time 20 years ago. I had some sort of video issue that I couldn't get right, and the dial-up modem would not work at all. Overall, it kinda worked, but I wasn't going anywhere with it really.

Christmas Day 1999, my father presented me with a store-bought boxed version of Red Hat Linux 6.1, with books and disks galore. The next day (or two), I had a (mostly) functional Linux box. Achievement unlocked!

I bounced around other distros in the years after that. I arrived at Linux Mint with 2.2 in 2007, and it became my "go-to" Linux with LM 5 in 2008, but I must concede that I was still using Windows XP for many things, just because I couldn't get viable Linux alternatives working. That too would soon change.

In 2009, mainstream support for Win XP ended, and Vista was not getting good reviews, so fate took its course with me. I've been all Linux since, and I can't believe it's been 10 years already.

Today (2019), I'm mostly Linux Mint, but I certainly still dabble in other distros to satisfy my curiosities.

Joe

[MurphCID]

We stand on the shoulders of giants. I wonder if Slackware is starting a resurgence as well since Linux seems to be penetrating the world consciousness?

[MurphCID]

HA HA! I love this, its funny!

https://bitsnapper.com/wp-content/uploa ... napper.jpg

https://i.redd.it/46rqaq7ewlx01.png

[MurphCID]

I do miss sometimes the Mandrake ability to chose different window managers at boot up. Mandrake had a great number of desktops from KDE through Gnome, through others. It was nice to try others.

[desert rat]

I've been goofing around with Pcs since my first TRS-80 Model 1 in 1978. The only things we had then were LDOS, TRSDOS and CPM. I even did a little Z80 assembly language programming. I owned a TRS80, Sinclair something-or-other, Commodore C64, Packard Bell (!) PC and then mostly home-built systems since then.

I used every Version of Windows up till Windows 7. Then I installed crappy Windows 10 on my wife's laptop and bricked it. Luckily Linux Mint in a live session was able to repair the damage. I gave her back Windows 7, erased my laptop 2 years ago and made it Minty fresh and haven't looked back.

I'd tried an early version of Fedora years ago but couldn't get into it but the modern distros are looking great. Bye Bye Microsoft!